Friday, April 30, 2010

The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory



Title: The Constant Princess
Author: Philippa Gregory
Publisher: Harper Collins, 2006 (Paperback)
Length: 486 pages
Genre: Adult; Historical Fiction
Started: April 27, 2010
Finished: April 29, 2010

Summary:
From the author's website:
We think of her as the barren wife of a notorious king; but behind this legacy lies a fascinating story. Katherine of Aragon is born Catalina, the Spanish Infanta, to parents who are both rulers and warriors. Aged four, she is betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and is raised to be Queen of England. She is never in doubt that it is her destiny to rule that far-off, wet, cold land. Her faith is tested when her prospective father-in-law greets her arrival in her new country with a great insult; Arthur seems little better than a boy; the food is strange and the customs coarse.

Slowly she adapts to the first Tudor court, and life as Arthur’s wife grows ever more bearable. But when the studious young man dies, she is left to make her own future: how can she now be queen, and found a dynasty? Only by marrying Arthur’s young brother, the sunny but spoilt Henry.

His father and grandmother are against it; her powerful parents prove little use. Yet Katherine is her mother’s daughter and her fighting spirit is strong. She will do anything to achieve her aim; even if it means telling the greatest lie, and holding to it.
Philippa Gregory proves yet again that behind the apparently familiar face of history lies an astonishing story: of women warriors influencing the future of Europe, of revered heroes making deep mistakes, and of an untold love story which changes the fate of a nation.

Review:
My friend told me to start with this book if I wanted to get into Philippa Gregory's work, and she made a good choice, if all the other novels are as good as this one, I'll be quite happy. This one deals with the early life of Katherine of Aragon ("Catalina" for most of the novel) right up to marrying King Henry. It examines her relationship with her first husband, Arthur, Prince of Wales, whom she married at the age of 16 (he was 15). The romance between the two of them is very sweet, all the more so due to the rocky start they had. It's amazing just how much of an investment and a game marriage was back then for royal families, I knew it was, but never really understood the level it could escalate to until I read this, since it deals with marriage politics. After learning to truly love her first husband, Catalina's Arthur dies, making her promise to marry his younger brother Harry (the future King Henry) in order for her to have the power to influence and enact all the policies he wanted for his kingdom. Catalina does promise, and has to lie in order to ensure her succession as the future queen of England. It helps that Catalina is very ambitious to begin with, she's been betrothed to Arthur her whole life and grew up knowing she would be the queen, and she isn't about to give that up. She's a really admirable female lead, very strong-minded and loyal, she helps support both Arthur's and Henry's dreams while on the throne. The writing is excellent, I especially liked the little excerpts from letters/diaries that Catalina writes so you get a first person perspective as well as the third person narration.

Recommendation:
A very good piece of historical fiction with a really great romance as well.

Thoughts on the cover:
I'm a little more fond of the other cover for this novel, it's more colourful; however, this cover is nice and simple and fits in with Philippa Gregory's other covers (focusing on the dress and not seeing the whole face).

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Beauty - Robin McKinley



Title: Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
Author: Robin McKinley
Publisher: Harper Trophy, 1993 (Paperback) (originally published 1978)
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy, Fairy Tale
Started: April 28, 2010
Finished: April 28, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.ca:
Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage.

When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?"

Review:
I found this book in a classroom library while at work today, and since I am a sucker for Beauty and the Beast stories, I borrowed it and finished it all before I left work. This is more like the traditional story with the girl named Beauty having sisters and their father ends up promising Beauty to the beast when he is caught stealing a rose from his garden. I liked the little backstory behind the sisters' names (Grace, Hope, Honour) and how Beauty is just a nickname. The line where Beauty and Beast are talking about her names and he says "I welcome Beauty and Honour", is one that I would've been disappointed in the author if she hadn't worked that pun in there. There is a lot of character development in Beauty's family: her father, her sisters, her brothers -in-law, which is rarely something I see in these stories since the sisters are supposed to be slightly evil, which is not the case here. The father is sympathetic too because he doesn't offer Beauty to the Beast when he is caught, she insists on going to take his place. Normally, the father basically trades his daughter's life for his own, so this version brings the father up a notch. The plot is believable and works into the basic elements of the original story and extends it, the Beast doesn't even appear until more than 100 pages in, so all that is used to explore Beauty and her family. I would have liked to see more interaction between Beauty and the Beast, half the time Beauty is off on her own so you don't really see a lot of instances where that romance develops, she more or less tells you it did rather than witnessing the scenes that made it so. Out of all the Beauty and the Beast novel adaptations I've read this one is the most faithful to the original, but I think Beastly by Alex Flinn is still my favourite in terms of the novels, television and movie adaptations are another story ('cause I'm just that geeky).

Recommendation:
If you're looking for an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast that's faithful to the original while expanding on that story, read this!

Thoughts on the cover:
I love how all these adaptations clearly state that the Beauty character isn't supposed to be all that beautiful, but when you see images of her, she clearly is. Ah well, maybe all these girls just have very low self esteem and are ignorant of their own beauty.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Three for a Wedding - Mary C. Sheppard



Title: Three for a Wedding (Tales from Cook's Cove series)
Author: Mary C. Sheppard
Publisher: Penguin, 2009 (Paperback)
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Realistic Fiction
Started: April 23, 2010
Finished: April 25, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.ca:
There’s something mysterious about Grace-Mae’s arrival in Cook’s Cove. She wasn’t expected to arrive so early and without her mother, and there’s a strange reporter who’s been roaming around town asking questions about her, too. But Violet, Grace-Mae’s cousin, doesn’t have time to unravel the mystery. She’s got final exams, her sister’s wedding, and a garden party to prepare for. And her first boyfriend. This is sure to be a summer she’ll never forget.

Review:
This is the third title in the Tales from Cook's Cover series, though not necessarily to be read in that order. This series, written by a Canadian author who grew up in Newfoundland, is all about one large extended family living in and around Cook's Cove and the young women growing up in it. The books deal with different girls in the family in different time periods, for instance, Three for a Wedding chronicles the summer of Violet Lewis and her family; whereas one of the previous books, Seven for a Secret, tells the story of her mother and aunts when they were teenagers. I've read One for Sorrow, another title in the series, and I really enjoyed it, so I decided to give this title a try. Though immensely different than One for Sorrow, Three for a Wedding is no less enjoyable. Violet Lewis is 16 in 1988 and desperately wants to stay in her hometown that her now deceased father worked so hard to keep his family in, but is constantly pressured by her mother to go to medical school in Toronto in the hopes of finding better opportunities. At the same time, her older sister Jenny is getting married, so the plans for the wedding are squeezed in amongst studying and school functions. On top of all that, Violet's cousin, Grace-Mae, arrives for the wedding from Boston 2 months early and is staying with Violet's family. Grace-Mae is spoiled, stuck-up, materialistic, and the complete opposite of the girls from Cook's Cove, at least that's how she appears on the outside. Violet knows there's something fishy about her cousin's sudden arrival and is determined to find out.

One of the best things about this books for me was all the wedding preparations and all the frustrations Jenny had to go through to plan it. For teenagers reading this, all those vignettes would seem very boring, but for someone who's been through planning a wedding and had some of those very same problems, it made me relate to the story all that much more. Of course since it's 1988, Jenny chooses frilly purple bridesmaid dresses, but thankfully for Grace-Mae's talents in fashion design the girls don't end up looking too ridiculous. The whole crux of the novel is Violet holding herself back from her future potential because she doesn't want to leave Newfoundland because her father worked so hard to keep the family from moving out of it, and she feels like she'd be dishonouring her father's memory by doing the very thing he would have hated. Eventually, she realizes that she's holding herself and her mother back from realizing their dreams and decides to do what's best for both their futures. All the stuff with Grace-Mae and finding a first boyfriend is all mixed in amongst that. This really is a slice-of-life story, almost like a Miyazaki movie, there's no real conflict aside from real-life stuff everyone deals with, and it feels as if you could be watching this all take place in your own backyard rather than in a book. Granted, you have to like that sort of story, some people are insanely bored by it, I'm the opposite.

This series doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should, it's written by a Canandian author about Canadian teenage girls from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and it takes place in Newfoundland...I can't remember the last time I read a book that takes place in the Maritimes that wasn't a Lucy Maud Montgomery novel. These are wonderful realistic fiction novels that examine different generations of the same family growing up on the east coast, they're well worth the read, so check them out.

Recommendation:
If you like slice-of-life stories, read this! Or, if you're looking for a good example of YA Canadian literature, read this!

Thoughts on the cover:
The first book in the series, Seven for a Secret, was under a different publisher than the latest two, and as such had a different cover. I much prefer the covers of One for Sorrow and Three for a Wedding, they're dynamic with the upside-down image that is unmistakably Maritimes at the top with the image of the female character at the bottom. They're just very gorgeous covers, I almost hope that the first one gets a re-vamp cover to match the other two.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Page - Tamora Pierce



Title: Page (Book 2 of the Protector of the Small Quartet)
Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Random House, 2001 (Paperback)
Length: 245 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy
Started: April 22, 2010
Finished: April 23, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.com:
Kel’s hardships continue as she fights the prejudices that come with being a girl while maintaining the rigorous training of a page. Kel’s skills aren’t the only thing that are developing. Her feelings for her best friend Neal are also changing...in a very uncomfortable way. Luckily Kel has some new allies, including an ugly but lovable dog and an abused young woman to whom she teaches self-defense.

Review:
Okay, this is the last one, I promise.
The second book in this series covers Kel from the age of 11 until her 14th birthday, basically all of her remaining years as a page. She goes through puberty, gets a crush a Neal, acquires a maid and teaches her to defend herself, saves a dog, leads the boys against an attack on bandits in the woods, and has to make some hard decisions about what her priorities are. Kel continues to be mature, calm, and composed, sometimes to the frustration of the other boys, especially the ones that want to see her fail. I think the cutest part was when the pages were all getting ready to serve at the mid-winter banquet and they all come to see Kel beforehand to get her approval that they look nice and presentable, which is funny since Kel's not the ideal person for this, but she's the only girl around so the boys automatically go to her. Seeing the boys go a little nuts over her honour as soon as she develops a chest is just funny... sweet, but funny. I'm glad Lalasa was added as Kel's maid because it gave her another girl to talk to about things. The ending was unexpected, but in a good way, it shows that just because Kel's barely 14 doesn't mean that she won't be dealing with some pretty serious issues down the road because of what she's chosen to do.

Recommendation:
If you liked the first book in the series, this one is better, so read this!

Thoughts on the cover:
I like how they kept the theme amongst the covers, but the image itself is kind of blah.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Wild Magic - Tamora Pierce



Title: Wild Magic (Book 1 of The Immortals Quartet)
Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2005
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy
Started: April 20, 2010
Finished: April 23, 2010

Summary:
From chapters.indigo.ca:
Thirteen-year-old Daine has always had a knack with animals, but it's not until she''s forced to leave home that she realizes it''s more than a knack -- it's magic. With this wild magic, not only can Daine speak to animals, but also she can make them obey her. Daine takes a job handling horses for the Queen's Riders, where she meets the master mage Numair and becomes his student.
Under Numair's guidance, Daine explores the scope of her magic. But she begins to sense other beings too: immortals. These bloodthirsty monsters have been imprisoned in the Divine Realms for the past four hundred years, but now someone has broken the barrier. It's up to Daine and her friends to defend their world from an immortal attack.

Review:
Yes, I'm on a nostalgia kick, so more Tamora Pierce. This series was my favourite when I was younger so re-reading it was fun. Veralidaine ("Daine") is a newly orphaned girl who has a way with animals. When she is taken on as assistant to Onua of the Queen's Riders, she has finally secured a life for herself. When immortal creatures start attacking Tortall from the Divine Realms, Daine and her newly discovered wild magic must aide in the fight to defend Tortall from them. Daine is one of my favourite of this author's heroines because she is simple but very good-hearted, plus she gets flustered so easily. The plot moves along very quickly and doesn't lag. The characters really make this series, Daine is sweet and innocent, Onua and Alanna are comic relief, Numair is charming, and the animal characters are witty.

Recommendation:
If you like medieval fantasy with strong female characters and lots of animals, read this!

Thoughts on the cover:
Again, thank god for cover redesigns. This version is so much nicer than the original, even though it doesn't show Daine's curly hair.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

First Test - Tamora Pierce



Title: First Test (Book 1 of the Protector of the Small Quartet)
Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Random House, 2000 (Paperback)
Length: 206 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy
Started: April 21, 2010
Finished: April 22, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.com:
Keladry (known as Kel) is the first girl to take advantage of the decree that permits girls to train for the knighthood. The only thing that can stop her is Lord Wyldon, the training master of pages and squires. He does not think girls should be knights and puts her on probation for one year. It is a trial period that no male page has to endure and one that separates the friendly Kel even more from her fellow trainees. But Kel is not someone to underestimate. . . .

Review:
Ah, Tamora Pierce, this takes me back; I read through her Song of the Lioness quartet and The Immortals quartet in the late 90s when I was in high school. This series of books about Keladry takes off right after The Immortals quartet left off, but you don't necessarily need to read all the series from the start to get a feel for the universe that is Tortall, there are glossaries and most of the background info is explained for you. After Alanna the Lioness became the first woman to become a knight after concealing her sex to do so, a proclamation went out that girls could attempt a page's training like boys. Ten years have passed and no girl has applied until Keladry. With training master Wyldon dead set against females becoming knights, and Alanna forbidden by the king to have contact with Keladry because it might show favouritism, Kel is truly on her own. But Kel is a different kind of heroine than those of previous books. Living in the Yamani Islands for years (a thinly veiled version of Japan), Kel has been trained to never question orders, to never show emotion, and to fight using moves the boys in Tortall have never seen. She's also very calm and composed, unlike the fiery temper we see in Alanna. Kel's got morals too, she stands up to the third year pages when they take their usual hazing of the first years a little too far, despite the fact that she gets beat up almost every time she does. I love how this author always writes very strong female characters, her stories reek of feminist influences, and I don't know how I could have pictured myself at 13 or 14 without having read all her books.

Recommendation:
If you're looking for a medieval style fantasy with really strong female character, read this!

Thoughts on the cover:
Thank the gods of book covers that all her novels received updated covers once the 2000s hit. As much as I love my copies from the 90s, the covers had a tendency to look very kiddy. I love the images for this series, either focusing on Kel's face or body as she ages and in different single colours. This particular cover for book 1 is very striking simply because you see Kel's whole face, and when I looked at the cover I immediately thought that's what Kel should look like based on her description throughout the book.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Line - Teri Hall



Title: The Line
Author: Teri Hall
Publisher: Dial Books, 2010 (Hardcover)
Length: 224 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Dystopian Fiction
Started: April 20, 2010
Finished: April 21, 2010

Summary:
From the author's website:
In the not so distant future…

Rachel lives with her mother on The Property. The good thing about living there is that it’s far from the city where the oppressive government is most active. The bad thing, at least to most people, is that it’s close to the Line—an uncrossable section of the National Border Defense System, an invisible barrier that encloses the entire country.

She can see the Line from the greenhouse windows, but she is forbidden to go near it. Across the Line is Away, and though Rachel has heard many whispers about the dangers there, she’s never really believed the stories. Until the day she hears a recording that could only have come from across the Line.

It’s a voice asking for help.

Who sent the message? What is her mother hiding? And to what lengths will Rachel go in order to do what she thinks is right?

Review:
Another good example of dystopian fiction, and my favourite kind to boot: super evil government! There's a lot of back-history and world-building to this novel, and the author cleverly conveys the information to readers through Rachel's mother quizzing her daughter in her home-school history lessons. All the female characters are very strong leads, right down to Ms. Moore, the crotchety grandmother-type whose backstory is probably the most surprising of them all. Rachel is a very clear cut girl, she believes something's right or it's wrong, contrasted with her mother whose first priority is preserving the only thing she has left of the time before her husband died: Rachel herself. The plot grabs you and pulls you in right away, hence why I plowed through this so fast, I couldn't put it down. There's a lot of dimension to the story and some sub-plots to keep your interest. I felt that Pathik and the Others could have had some more development, they seemed very flat character-wise, but then I realized this was a series (of course), so the focus on the Others and the cliffhanger will be explored in the second book.

Recommendation:
If you're looking for (yet another) good example of dystopian fiction, with some really compelling characters, read this! Keep in mind that there will be a sequel as you're reading the ending.

Thoughts on the cover:
I like the focus on the greenhouse since it's a focal point of the story (right down to Rachel's experiments with botany), and keeping the scene at night with the inside lit up is a nice touch.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Inside Out - Maria V. Snyder



Title: Inside Out
Author: Maria V. Snyder
Publisher: Harlequin Teen, 2010 (Paperback)
Length: 314 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Science Fiction, Dystopian Fiction
Started: April 14, 2010
Finished: April 20, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.com:
Keep Your Head Down.

Don't Get Noticed.

Or Else.

I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.

Review:
Most of the reviews I've read on this book are very much "love it" or "hate it", no middle ground. Thankfully, I'm of the "love it" crowd. I can fully see why some people wouldn't like this book right off the bat: Trella's very prickly and a loner, not an immensely likable character; and Trella spends the first 100 pages or so traipsing around in the environment of Inside, which is kind of confusing at times (I could picture it a lot better once I drew a map). Luckily for me, I like my characters snarky and prickly, and once I realized that Inside is basically a very large office building that's shaped like a cube, things became a lot clearer. I liked Trella right away, hiding out in the pipes above the overcrowded lower levels trying to escape the smells of her fellow scrubs. It's a similar story to a lot of other dystopian fiction books: character and world they live in are introduced, problem with people in charge is introduced, journey to solve problem ensues, other bigger problem presents itself at the end. There are two issues going on in Inside Out: the scrubs and the Uppers both want freedom from the ruling Travas, and Trella and some scrubs (and eventually Uppers) investigate the possibility of Outside, a world that can't exist in Trella's mind since she's grown up thinking that Inside is all there is. One other element that runs through Inside Out is the idea that people are social animals and need each other. Trella finds it very hard to trust other people until very late in the book, and the Uppers and scrubs are devoid of real relationships outside their families (and scrubs barely even have that) due to paranoia and propaganda. Riley, an Upper, comes into play when he comes across Trella in his workroom and doesn't report her, earning her trust eventually and becoming her partner in crime. Probably the best thing Riley does is introduce Sheepy...that will make a lot more sense once you read the book, but trust me, you will love Sheepy.

The writing is excellent, the plot flows very well, and there is the existence of an over-arching plot to keep the reader's interest beyond the initial book in this series. The world-building is done well and is very detailed (the jobs, the work schedules, the rules etc.). The ending will blow you away, I didn't expect it at all, and will make you wish for the next book to see what Trella and the others do with the information they learn. Again, the only thing I can see being an issue for some people is Trella's pipe-crawling and the descriptions that go with it, it might turn some people off the book if they don't have the patience to get past those first 50 or so pages until the plot really grips you.

Recommendation:
If you're looking for a really good example of dystopian fiction with a real sci-fi influence, read this! If you would like some visuals to help you get past the first few pages, the author has some maps for Inside Out on her website, or you can just draw one yourself.

Thoughts on the cover:
I like it, it really plays on title, very clever. I like how they used Trella's new blue eyes as the only colour that stands out on the cover (aside from the blue in the title).

Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Sunday Salon - eReaders for Canadians, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie

The Sunday Salon.com

My husband and I had a hectic day yesterday. We sat with our accountant to discuss our taxes and afterwards talked about what we wanted to do with our tax refunds. Hubby wants to get some stuff for the house, and a new laptop to replace his ancient one, and I'm looking at jumping into the eReader foray since there are so many options available now for Canadians to choose from: Sony's eReader, the Kobo, the Kindle, and the iPad. I've been doing research on all four this weekend to try to figure out which one would be a good match for me. I like the wireless on the Kindle, and when I did a random search for some recent physical books I've bought, Kindle's store had all the matching eBooks. The Kobo is coming out in May and is much cheaper ($150), comes pre-loaded with 100 public domain titles, but forces you to upload via a USB or Bluetooth, and I could hardly find any of the eBook versions of my recently purchased books on Kobo's store. The iPad is expensive (cheapest model is $500) and since the iBooks app is only available for the iPad (which isn't being sold in Canada yet), it's hard to get an idea of the availability of certain titles. Sony's eReader costs less than the Kindle but more than the Kobo (around $200), and even though it comes in a really cute rose colour you can only upload via USB, however, the Sony eBook store's selection is better than Kobo (but not as good as Kindle's).

So I'm stuck. I would love an iPad but that's way too much of an investment to make when I already have a perfectly good MacBook, so a cheaper device that is only an eReader would be more practical. Kindle would be my first choice given the wireless downloading and the amazing selection form the Kindle store. The only thing that bugs me about the Kindle is the non-standard format that it sells its eBooks in, meaning that I can't transfer those eBooks to a new device down the road (unless it's another device Amazon decides to make). Sony would be my second choice due to the colour of the device (I'm a sucker for girly colours), as well as the selection of the store. Sadly, though Kobo is Canadian and cheap and comes pre-loaded with 100 titles already, unless I can get the books I want to read in an eBook format, what's the point of getting an eReader? The Kobo store doesn't even have The Hunger Games, which the other two stores do have, how can you call yourself a bookstore of any kind and not stock The Hunger Games, seriously. But since both stores use the ePub format, hopefully that means I can buy from the Sony store and use the Kobo device, I'll have to see.

After our business with the accountant, we went to Mississauga to go see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the original Swedish version with subtitles. The only other theatre showing it was in Toronto, so we took Mississauga instead. The movie was long, almost 3 hours, but so worth it. The movie does leave out a lot of information that the book delves into, such as the mental health system in Sweden that Lisbeth's involved in and Mikael's whole early involvement with the Wenerstrom case, but no to the point where it's detrimental to the plot. My husband hasn't read the book yet, but he could follow along with the plot just fine. The actors that played Mikael and Lisbeth were perfect, they got the personalities just right. Now if only I could find a way to import the dvd...

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

After - Amy Efaw



Title: After
Author: Amy Efaw
Publisher: Viking, 2009 (Hardcover)
Length: 350 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Realistic Fiction
Started: April 13, 2010
Finished: April 13, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.com:
An infant left in the trash to die. A teenage mother who never knew she was pregnant . . .
Before That Morning, these were the words most often used to describe straight-A student and star soccer player Devon Davenport: responsible, hardworking, mature. But all that changes when the police find Devon home sick from school as they investigate the case of an abandoned baby. Soon the connection is made—Devon has just given birth; the baby in the trash is hers. After That Morning, there’s only one way to define Devon: attempted murderer.

And yet gifted author Amy Efaw does the impossible— she turns Devon into an empathetic character, a girl who was in such deep denial that she refused to believe she was pregnant. Through airtight writing and fast-paced, gripping storytelling, Ms. Efaw takes the reader on Devon’s unforgettable journey toward clarity, acceptance, and redemption.

Review:
This is one of those teenage issue books that you might not always want to read but you know you'll appreciate it after you do read it. I'd been trying to get my hands on this for a while and finally just ended up buying it rather than waiting for it at the library. I'm glad I did because I'd have ended up buying a copy anyway, it's that good.

The book opens with 15-year-old Devon staying home sick in the morning and police canvassing the area for information about a baby abandoned in a dumpster. When Devon's mother opens the door and police find Devon in blood-soaked pants laying on the couch, they know the baby is hers and she is quickly hospitalized and later arrested. The book essentially covers Devon's various stages of court proceedings and juvenile hall detention, all the while revealing facts about Devon and what drove her to do what she did. This was difficult to read at times given the subject matter, and at first it was very hard for me to even like Devon because of it. As you read though, she emerges as a sympathetic character. Devon is more mature and responsible than her mother, who herself had Devon at age 16, she's stellar student and athlete, and everyone loves her. Everyone expects Devon to do the right thing all the time, and she holds herself under very strict guidelines, won't allow herself to loosen up. So how could such a good girl do such a horrible thing? The author researched this book extremely well, she paints a picture of Devon as a girl who became so deep in denial that she didn't allow herself to acknowledge she was pregnant because she didn't want to turn out like her mother (her number one rule for herself being not having sex). As you see how Devon began to withdraw from her studies and soccer and her friends, you start to think why nobody noticed that there was something very wrong and try to talk to her about it. The book is as much about Devon's actions as it is about the actions of those around her. Devon was disturbed psychologically and did some things because of it, but the warning signs were all there, and nobody cared enough about her life to say something....granted, Devon didn't exactly make it easy for them.

The writing is amazing, the plot moves along quickly with no slow points, and the subject matter is more interesting than a lot of the stuff I've read lately. The ending surprised me a lot, I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it made me like Devon and want to slap her at the same time.

Recommendation:
Such a good book, read this! Warning though, some parts are slightly graphic (lots of blood and birthing scenes etc.), so a heads up for people sensitive of squicky stuff.

Thoughts on the cover:
Very simple, but once you realize the difference in the mirror image the effect is very profound.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Iron King - Julie Kagawa



Title: The Iron King
Author: Julie Kagawa
Publisher: Harlequin Teen, 2010 (Paperback)
Length: 363 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy
Started: April 10, 2010
Finished: April 12, 2010

Summary:
From the author's website:
MEGHAN CHASE HAS A SECRET DESTINY— ONE SHE COULD NEVER HAVE IMAGINED…
Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan’s life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school…or at home.
When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she’s known is about to change.
But she could never have guessed the truth—that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she’ll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.

Review:
When this book came on my radar, the first thing I thought was, "oh lord, not another dang fairy book", because, to be honest, they're starting to get as popular as vampire books, and I have yet to find one that really stands out from the mass of them. However, I read a sample chapter online and I like the writing style, so I decided to pick this up. I'm going to deviate a little to talk about the publishing imprint this falls under: Harlequin Teen. I don't know about you, but as soon as I hear "Harlequin" in the same sentence as "books" and I think "trashy romance novels". However, upon doing some research into the imprint, I found that these are not smutty romance stories for teens, they have the same romantic content as any other teen novel. Another thing that I really like about this imprint is that out of the 10 or so books they're released so far, only one has been in hardcover. All new releases, most of them printed straight to paperback. I like this, as a reader and as a reviewer, I'm more likely to pick up a blind-buy if I'm only dropping $10 as opposed to $20, so that means more books for my classroom and less waiting for weeks for holds at the library. Another one of their titles, Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (which is next on my reading list) has gotten some great reviews, so I figure this imprint can't be all that bad, if for nothing else than releasing stuff in paperback first rather than hardcover (my wallet likes this).

So anyway, enough about the publishing imprint. The Iron King starts off with Meghan Chase getting ready for school. She lives in rural Louisiana with her mom, stepdad, and little half brother, Ethan. I immediately liked Meghan because she was very down to earth, and also because of Ethan, I love how she interacted with him, got me hooked onto the story immediately. Shortly afterwards, Ethan is kidnapped by faeries and replaced by a changeling - a faery child that attacks Meghan's mother and is insanely violent. Meghan discovers her best friend is really Robin Goodfellow aka Puck in human guise, and begs him to take her into the faery realm to bring Ethan back. Along the line she finds out that she's the daughter of Oberon, which gives her even more daddy issues than she already had, and enlists the help of a cat named Grimalkin and Ash, prince of the Unseelie Court, to aid her in her quest to the court of the Iron King where Ethan is being held prisoner. I'm not usually a big fan of quest stories because they usually tend to drag in certain spots, and this is no exception, there were a few spots in Part Two that I simply skimmed over because they were boring and didn't miss much. Granted, the characters are a big plus in this book. The cat, Grimalkin, is funny in a serious "you're an idiot...I'm a cat and I know better than you" way, and Puck is hilarious and very witty, I loved Puck. Ash is kind of hard to judge, he's the love interest, but I saw more hints of romance between Meghan and Puck than I did between Meghan and Ash, aside from the dance scene at the ball. Hopefully the romance between the two will get better in the following books (this is book one of a trilogy).

Recommendation:
If you're looking for a well-written fantasy that centers on fairies, with likable characters, read this!

Thoughts on the cover:
I like the half-image of Meghan's face framed with crawling vines. The blond of Meghan's hair and the turquoise of the vines work really we ll together, and some of the vines are raised and shiny. I like shiny.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life - Bryan Lee O'Malley



Title: Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
Author: Bryan Lee O'Malley
Publisher: Oni Press, 2004 (Paperback)
Length: 168 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Graphic Novel
Started: April 12, 2010
Finished: April 12, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.com:
Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old, lives in Toronto, plays bass in a band called Sex Bob-Omb and has a very cute 17-year-old Chinese-Canadian girlfriend, Knives Chau. His "precious little life" is amiably unstructured, and he drifts, happily unemployed, between band practice and time spent with Knives. His relationship with Knives is chaste—walks, chats and hugs—although Knives is getting bigger ideas. "We haven't even held hands," Scott explains. "It's just nice, you know." But then he starts having dreams about Ramona Flowers, a mysterious, equally cute and perfectly legal hipster chick on Rollerblades who delivers books for Amazon.ca. Ramona is anything but simple, and O'Malley's tale of adorable slackers in love is transformed into a wildly magically manga–kung fu fantasy adventure. We meet the first of Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends, Matthew Patel, who challenges Scott and his band to a supernatural martial arts duel right out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. O'Malley has crafted a delightfully hybrid comics love story. It's an alt-lit, rock 'n' roll graphic novel with wonderful manga-influenced drawing and a comically mystical plot that manages to capture both the genuine intimacies and serial dishonesties of young love.

Review:
I am ashamed to admit that I had yet to read any of the Scott Pilgrim books before today. The geek that I am, who married a geek, and hangs out with geeks, and I had yet to read Scott Pilgrim, shame on me. I'm glad I did though, it's a wonderfully funny series (from what I can tell from the first volume) and is a nice change from all the serious stuff I usually read. The art style is rough, but not unappealing; and the story is a mix of a young adult version of Seinfeld and Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Scott Pilgrim lives with his gay roommate, Wallace, in a house full of things he doesn't own. He dates a high school girl since there's no pressure for intimacy, and has visions of an Amazon.ca delivery girl that runs subspace shortcuts for her route through his head...that's right. The story is so immensely silly that when Scott and his band break out into punk rocker kung-fu in order to defeat the first of Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends, you're not all that shocked. Just when the book makes you think you're not supposed to take it seriously, you're kind of impressed by the things Scott does (like having a chaste relationship with Knives, and not being bummed out about not having sex with Ramona). I love the little details, like Scott plugging through waist-high snow walking home, and the little status subtitles that will appear with a character's name and age.

Recommendation:
Again, immensely funny and silly, so worth the read. Even though it's rated T for teen, I can see that some conservative people might have issues with Scott sleeping in the same bed with his gay roommate (cause they can't afford another bed), and later on with Ramona, even though no sex happens in either incident.

Thoughts on the cover:
Scott doing his finger-point fight pose. I like the sunburst rays behind him radiating outward.

Friday, April 9, 2010

The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson



Title: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Publisher: Square Fish, 2009 (Paperback)
Length: 265 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Science Fiction
Started: April 7, 2010
Finished: April 9, 2010

Summary:
From the publisher's website:
Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from a year-long coma—so she’s been told—and she is still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. But what happened before that? She’s been given home movies chronicling her entire life, which spark memories to surface. But are the memories really hers? And why won’t anyone in her family talk about the accident? Jenna is becoming more curious. But she is also afraid of what she might find out if she ever gets up the courage to ask her questions. What happened to Jenna Fox? And who is she really?

Review:
Ah, the classic "what does it mean to be human?" story. These never get old for me, perhaps it's because my husband is a sci-fi geek and these types of books are all over our house. It's pretty easy to guess why Jenna doesn't remember anything, the hints are pretty strong even from the very beginning of the book, but there's other issues at play. Jenna was a golden child, loved, adored, complete with the heavy expectations. Now that she's been revived after the accident, those expectations are that she'll resume her previous life, but she knows she is different now, and even if she could go back to being as she was before, she doesn't want to. It is expected that Jenna be perfect, and her parents proved this by the measures they took to ensure she survived the accident, they couldn't simply let her die. In a way, Jenna is more human now then when she actually was human because she realizes that she cannot live the way her parents envisioned for her.

There's a lot of layers to this novel that add to the main idea, mainly a futuristic system that prevents too much medical intervention, which begs the question of how far we would be willing to go to save a person's life if we had the technology? Would we take the barest part of a person and engineer the rest until it's impossible to tell if they're more human or machine? If we would, do others have the right to make this choice for us? For Jenna's parents, there's nothing a parent wouldn't do to save the life of their child, but Jenna argues that at some point, you need to let go. Given all this, the ending is rather unexpected, but I can understand how the author wrote it this way, it's more of an "you should have done this, but since things didn't go that way, I'll do this instead."

Recommendation:
If you like books that make you think, read this! This would be perfect for an upper level philosophy or science class, mainly due to the ethics involved, it would make for great classroom discussion.

Thoughts on the cover:
There are a few different covers for this book floating around (different publishers), but I think I like this one the best. The puzzle pieces really say a lot about the theme of the book, how Jenna slowly puts the pieces together and discovers what happened to her and what she should do. The white with blue accents gives it a futuristic feel somehow, and of course, the cover is shiny. As people have guessed, I have a thing for shiny covers.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Beastly - Alex Flinn



Title: Beastly
Author: Alex Flinn
Publisher: Harper Teen, 2008 (Paperback)
Length: 300 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy, Fairy Tale
Started: April 6, 2010
Finished: April 7, 2010

Summary:
From the back cover:
I am a beast. A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog, but a horrible new creature who walks upright – a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster.

You think I’m talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It’s no deformity, no disease. And I’ll stay this way forever – ruined – unless I can break the spell.

Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and a perfect life. And then, I’ll tell you how I became perfectly beastly.

Review:
The first I heard about this was from the trailer for the upcoming movie. Beauty and the Beast is my favourite fairy tale (I even worked a Beauty and the Beast reference into my wedding speech), and I knew I had to go see a modern retelling of it, even if my first impression was that it looked like a stupid teen movie. Then I saw the book in the store the other day (I had no idea it was based on a book), so I snatched it up, and the only reason it took a two-day span to read this was because I had to sleep, and because I had to go to a funeral (if it was just the sleep I'd have sacrificed that, no prob).

So yes, this is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I've seen and read lots of different versions: the 80s television series, the Disney version, the old black and white French version, The Rose by Mercedes Lackey, and Beast by Donna Jo Napoli. I figured I'd seen and read as much as could possibly be done with this story while still keeping it similar, but this version goes one step up: it's modern. Take some parts of the French and Disney film versions with the modern elements from the television series (just update it for the 2000s), and you've got Beastly. Kyle Kingsbury is like every boy I hated in high school: obsessed with his own looks with no substance of his own. He finally goes too far when he plays a cruel trick on a girl at his private school named Kendra, who's really a witch that puts a spell on him to teach him a lesson about what true beauty is. Once he realizes his rich father's money can't reverse the Beast spell using plastic surgery, his father exiles him to a brownstone in Brooklyn where he lives with his blind tutor, Will, and housekeeper, Magda. Kyle, who changes his name to Adrian, knows his only hope is to find a girl who will love him for who he is, but he has to love her back, which might be the harder part of the deal for him. Lindy comes into his life via her drug-addict father who offers Kyle his daughter in exchange for not turning him into the police when he is caught breaking into Kyle's home. The rest is pretty predictable if you're familiar with the story, but the beauty (pardon the pun) is in the details.

I love how they didn't sugar-coat the fact that Lindy's father was a sleaze who gave up his daughter to a stranger (keep in mind Kyle is a beast and pretty freaky looking). The Disney version danced around this, but in every other version she's given up without a second thought, so I'm glad that wasn't changed. I also like how they made Lindy a total bookworm, and how Kyle/Adrian eventually becomes a bookworm too due to his confinement. They actually bring up bits of classic books, so it's great when they reference The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Jane Eyre, and you actually know what they're talking about. Another cool thing is the intermittent instant message chat sessions between Kyle/Adrian and several other classic fairy tale characters who have also been transformed: the Little Mermaid, the bear from Snow White and Rose Red, and the frog from the Frog Prince. I loved those little bits, all the transformed characters arguing with each other over who has it worse and giving each other pep talks over the internet. They give a lot of back-story to Kyle/Adrian, Lindy doesn't even come in until halfway through the book. This is from his point of view though, so his character is pretty well-developed. The only thing I didn't like was the fact when the book fast-forwards from the fall to the following spring 7 months later, Kyle/Adrian turns from a selfish jerk starting to come around to a wonderfully sensitive guy who spouts romantic lines and who has a thing for his rose garden. Wuh? Where did all that come from, it happened pretty quick. Not that I couldn't believe it could happen, I'd just have liked to see that transition happen over a couple of pages rather than in two sentences. Lindy's character falls pretty flat (but I love her cause she's bookish), though granted I think we're supposed to feel for Kyle/Adrian moreso than her and just be happy that the girl he falls for is a normal and down-to-earth. We did get the back-story with her father and family life, I just think it would have been nice to flesh out her character a bit more than was done.

Recommendation:
If you like fairy tales and would like to see a modern retelling, read this! If you're in for a cute, fluffy, romantic story, read this! It's all around cute, I honestly can't find much fault with it, it's just a warm and fuzzy feeling kind of book. The romance is cute and realistic (they're teenagers, so they don't sleep together or elope or anything) without being too corny or unbelievable.

Thoughts on the cover:
I like the font and how the rose thorns stick out from the letters. Other than that, bleh, very boring. That, and the cover's shiny black, which means you can see fingerprints and smudges everywhere, which annoys me to no end.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot



Title: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Author: Rebecca Skloot
Publisher: Crown Publishers, 2010 (Hardcover)
Length: 328 pages
Genre: Nonfiction, Science, Medical Ethics
Started: April 5, 2010
Finished: April 6, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.ca:
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

Review:
This is so far removed from what I usually read but it's one of the few subjects of nonfiction I find fascinating. I used to love science when I studied it in high school, especially the social aspects of science and how it affects people and morality issues involved, so this was right up my alley. Essentially, all the human cells that have been used in medical advancements since the 50s were taken from this one woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951, leaving behind a husband and five children. Her family didn't even know about the medical field using her cells until the 70s. As they aged, they knew more about their mother's cells and how they were used than they knew about her. The key part of this story is the fact that the cells taken from Henrietta Lacks in 1951 were taken without permission while she was undergoing a biopsy related to her cervical cancer treatment, which is the same case today, any cells taken from you during medical treatments can be used for research down the road without your permission (though if someone wants your cells explicitly for research they need permission). When I think about how many blood tests I've had, how many surgeries and procedures I've had, it made me realize there's a lot of me floating around in the medical field that I never even thought about. What made Henrietta Lacks' cells so amazing was that they were the only human cells to grow and survive outside the human body, which made them ideal to use in medical experiments where the effect on human cells needs to be tested. HeLa, the name given to the cell line that grew out of Henrietta Lacks' cells, has been used in almost every single medical advancement you can think of: the polio vaccine, mapping the human genome, HIV, HPV, IVF, cancer research, you name it.

The ironic thing about the situation is that Henrietta's family were ignorant of much about their mother, including her cells. When scientists wanted to analyze the DNA behind HeLa cells in the 70s, they contacted the family saying they needed to test the family's blood to see if they had the same cancer Henrietta had. So the family felt more than a little kept in the dark by the scientists involved in their mother's case, especially with the race issues that were woven through everything. Also, Henrietta's family were not very highly educated, so a lot of the medical and scientific terminology went completely over their heads and they misunderstood a lot of what they read and heard about HeLa cells, and what the scientists were trying to tell them. When you think in your head that parts of your mother are being sent into space and involved in atom bomb trials and wondering whether those parts of your mother actually feel pain from these experiments and not understanding the basic science involved, that's bound to be very stressful. Add to that the fact that Henrietta's descendants can't afford health insurance and are addled with many medical conditions (a few which result from their parents being cousins), it almost make you want to laugh from the irony. By law the family are not eligible for compensation, but your sense of justice just seems slighted, seeing the family of the woman who provided cells for all medical research that can't pay medical bills. The book also brings up a lot of cases of medical ethics related to the HeLa cells, especially about informed consent. I think the medical ethics of the 50s and 60s was the most interesting part of the book, scientists injecting HeLa cells into prisoners thinking those cells would cause cancer and not telling them what they were injecting into their arms.

One aspect of the novel that kept hammering over and over in my head was the aspect of education. A lot of the pain and stress felt by the family was because they were not well educated. Henrietta's husband had a 4th grade education, and although half her children graduated high school, they didn't have the skills to properly understand much of what they were told and read. I see the same thing in my own family with relatives who didn't complete high school, and I keep telling the kids I work with that if they don't have a basic education not only will they not get decent jobs but people will take advantage of their ignorance. Though with most families, the Lacks remedied this with their future children. Many of Henrietta's grandchildren and great grandchildren went on to college after high school, and her children fully recognize the value of a good education and that things would have been different if they had a good education. So although this book is really about medical ethics, me, forever the educator, managed to find a way to bring up education in a nonfiction science book.

Recommendation:
If you like books on this type of subject and can stomach all the science-speak, read this! Even if you're not a science person, the book isn't written like a textbook and the concepts are very easy to understand.

Thoughts on the cover:
I like the insert picture of Henrietta, and the blown-up image of HeLa cells was a good touch too, but they could have picked better colours than orange and pink, bleh.